InfoPath Dev

Good morning community. My form has several tables in it. When I open the form each field is displayed and some of them are requiring a value before submitting. If I don't want to give a value to those fields, I have to remove them with the shortcut menu "remove item" before submitting.

Example is I might want to add an item but not designate a supporter because it does not require one. Unless I remove the row on the form through the shortcut menu asking for a supporter, it will not allow the form to be submitted.

Can I designate those fields as optional instead of required in the form or better yet have them not generate a form box until I specify to add a new item. 

Thanks much for reading. Have a great weekend,

Howard

Ps. is there a good InfoPath book recommendation that will help me learn to build forms for SQL Server?  I've been learning as I go and have become the InfoPath guy at the office.

EDIT: Found the books section. http://www.infopathdev.com/content/InfoPathBooks.aspx

 EDIT2:  There is something called optional section. Trying to see if that will do what is required. Possibly a repeating table inside an optional section.

  

 

Thought I was close with the optional section but I can't put a repeating table inside an optional section.

I guess the trick is to get a repeating table with an optional section in it with a repeating table in the optional section. Working on that.

Hi, Howard:

Is this form based off a database? Or is it from scratch? Or something else?

It is based on my SQL database.  Here is a screenshot. I would like contact name and type to be optional but whenever I make a new record it wants values for those fields and wont submit until I fill them in or remove the blank fields through the contact table's shortcut menu.

If I put them in an optional section inside this table then it does not allow repeating for multiple supporters.

 

Do you think that there is a way to do this?

 

 

 

 

 

If it is based off your database, usually the issue is that the db is set to not allow null. Is that the case here?

The database does not allow nulls because all three columns in the table make up the primary key. CI, Contact, ContactType. It is an intermediary table that holds many to many relationships between configuration items and contacts.

Is it true that I can't have a repeating table inside an optional section? Seems like I should be able to make it optional, click the optional add an item, then add as many contacts as needed.

It is not a big deal.  When filling in the form I can just remove the blank row it creates for contact then submit

Thanks Hilary,

Have a great weekend.

 Howard

If you look in the Default Values (for IP 2007, I think it is under Tools / Default values, for 2010 under the Data tab) you can deselect nodes you don't want included when a new form is created....then you don't have any in your repeating table when you create a new form. Does that help?

Hilary, that is exactly what I was looking for. Fantastic!

You have helped me so much.  Wish I could do something nice for you.

 Have a great weekend.

Howard

Greg Collins showed me that shortly after I started with Qdabra. I was AMAZED.... had never managed to find that feature on my own, now I use it all the time.

Another little thing a lot of us don't find on our own with repeating tables -- in the properties for the repeating table, you can actually adjust the default for groups that are inserted to THAT table. So you can have a few tables bound to the same group, conditionally formatted to show or hide rows based on a field value, and then set the field's value in the repeating table. I've attached a little sample, since it really is a neat feature.